Hans Hoffmann's Blog

When I first started in this industry in 1991 having an email address was a window to the future.  As a temp at Microsoft I had a dumb terminal with Xenix Email.  I would sit there and wait for my emails to come — which usually came from the person about two cubicles down.  But it was thrilling when they came.  Maybe I had a secret admirer? Ok if I did she may be three or four cubicles down but it was a new world and I new way to communicate.

Later when I got hired on at Microsoft I got a new email account that would last for the next 18 years, hansh and later hansh@microsoft.com.  Remember at this time there was  no internet, all emails were internal, but it was still a brave new world.  The big move was to our mail server MS Mail v3.1 with a graphical client.  I know this seems rather dweebish and not terribly exciting.  At the time I could probably say among friends I was the only one who had a corporate email account.  MS Mail was great compared to my old Xenix email.  It had spell check and a global address list.   It was slow compared to todays world.  When you went on vacation and came back you had to download all your email you missed and that took 2 hours.  You could go talk to your co-workers about your great vacation.  I would say at this point I still liked it.

Several events swayed my love.  The growth of Microsoft as a company was one.  Over the years people would make careers writing massive emails to their org, their department, their division, frankly whomever would be “required” to listen and read all these emails of corporate drivel, they were in some cases painful.  I know a lot of these emails were well thought out, professional and full of worthwhile content.  However as time went on it was like an avalanche of information.  Most emails were so long that you could not take or find the time to read them all.  I cannot count the times I would let an email sit in my inbox thinking I need to read this only to a month later as I cleaned out my inbox simply delete the email.  The good side was there were training companies that offered courses on how to manage your corporate email.

An event that went almost unnoticed was the rise of mobile phones and in particular what Nokia did with the mobile phone, namely being the prime mover of SMS or simply put text messaging.  Up until text messaging the mobile phone was simply a phone that allowed you to call anywhere.    But Nokia realized you have a device that had a user interface and you could do things with that interface.  Such as type messages.  It remains largely the same today but has grown into quite an industry.  In 2008 there were over 1 trillion text messages sent worldwide.  In my view services like Twitter owe everything to SMS.

The second big event that occurred was the internet.  Now customers could email and interact with me directly.  This became a real bummer.  In addition to this now everyone could get a personal email account because the internet was “hip” and everyone needed an identity, frankly I needed more email.  Now instead of managing just my corporate email I can now manage my own personal account.  How much time do I spend each day checking and deleting email?  Way too much.  It is a nightmare.  The internet though would have benefits and as time moved on the group know as the First globalists by John Zogby would start to reject the horror that my generation started.  Enter Social Networking.

Social Networking as is so often the case in the tech industry did not start with todays current leader, Facebook.  The original was MySpace.  But despite the early success things quickly changed and before you knew it they were yesterday’s news.  In today’s world we have the phenomena of Facebook and then Twitter.  What is interesting is what occurs on these sites is a new form of communication with far less structures and far less ridiculed than traditional email.  I recently saw Obama Campaign manager David Plouffe speak and he even mentioned on the campaign as they worked hard to reach out to younger voters that they had to avoid traditional email as the primary communication mechanism since younger voters communicated via Text messaging, Facebook, and Twitter.  As he put it his views on new media communications were old.

All I can say to this new generation is amen.  I think we have reached a space in corporate america (my background) where email is actually counter productive.  I cannot count the countless  and numbing hours spent reading marketing emails, emails from co-workers, the countless fire drills spurred on by these emails, some because of their content and some because I simply either did not read or just plain missed them.  Some days I felt like my job was simply cleaning out my inbox and hitting the delete button five hundred times.

With the new trend of commmunciating via video conference I see a helpful trend where we will get back to more face-face communications.  Structured emails rarely reveal the talent of intent of the individual behind them.  There is a lot to be said about reading people s facial expressions.  But maybe more importantly is the civility of it all.  During this election season we see the scathing personal attacks that can be laid down in the print and in a large way through technologies like email we have brought that into our own lives.  Now will video communications necessarily change that?  Short answer is no.  But in the end I have to admit I am just a bit burnt out.  If a person or group of people are angry with me just say it to my face and stop this cowardly email business.  Yes email people I view your love as cowardly, but do not worry technology moves on and it will all be dead before you know it, in fact it already has.

Good Night and Good Luck 

Hans Henrik Hoffmann Nov 1 2010

With the announcement of Ray Ozzie’s pending departure i t seemed to be a good time to finish a blog I had started many months ago.  Partly with this announcement in mind. It seemed apparent for some time while at Microsoft and after I was gone that Ray had become very silent. It was also pretty clear that the rumors that Ray and SteveB never talked were true.  It ended with Ray not even participating in Microsoft’s company meeting recently held at the hollowed venue: Safeco Field.  It’s good to look back on Ray’s time at Microsoft and what to expect moving forward.

To start let me be clear: In the tech industry Ray Ozzie is a legend.  When Microsoft acquired his company Groove Networks, what really happened was Microsoft acquired Ray Ozzie.  The happiest person on campus was probably also his biggest fan, Bill Gates.  It was like two kids in a candy store.  Two men who were software guys who had helped create the tech industry now together talking about the power and impact that software could have on day-to-day lives, what could be better?  As time would move and Bill Gates would move on it was apparent that Ray would be the new Chief Software Architect.

Early on Ray would send an important memo around the company called the “Internet Services Disruption”.  It as important at the time because this was the type of memo that BillG would send which would have great impact in mobilizing the forces at Microsoft as to what the new company imperative should be.  When I read it it was what I viewed as a brilliant piece of work.  Not just because of what he viewed the challenges would be moving forward, but some of the great technologies we already had to meet these challenges.  In some cases they were things that maybe had lost their pizzaz but when Ray took a fresh look at them he saw value. An example was technologies like AJAX and DHTML which were created at Microsoft and fueled a lot of growth on the internet (AJAX was more evangelized by Google, but invented by MS). It was those set of fresh eyes on our assets that impressed me so much.  It was a brilliant memo and one that seemed to lay the ground work for who would be fueling the vision post Bill Gates.

Where did  it then go wrong?  I can point to a number of instances.  I will start with my own Ray Ozzie experience.  He was speaking in Silicon Valley and the topic of Bill Gates “Think Week” came up.  BillG had done this for years.  Anyone could submit a paper to BillG’s “Think Week”.  He  would then accept papers and go to his compound in Hood Canal and armed with just a personal chef read and review all the papers submitted.  When he got back he would post all the papers so we as employees could see what was on his mind.  Some papers were about the future, others about internal Microsoft technology challenges.  It was a fascinating read.  When asked if he as going to do one, Ray as blunt, “No that was really a Bill thing”.   I was not impressed.  In fact I was so upset about it I sent him an email.  It was pretty simple, but my point was firm.  Microsoft is a technical company, with very technical people.  These people crave this type of peer review.  Especially from some one like Ray Ozzie.  I said in the email “don’t sell your self short, people really do want to hear your opinions”.  Ray did reply to me saying thank you and being very gracious.  I guess in the end it was something he did not want to do.

A second area was just Ray’s personality.  He was not a comfortable speaker.  I am not saying he was bad.  When Ray spoke people listened.  Anyone in the tech industry wanted to hear hat he had to say.  But everything about Ray was about a guy who was most comfortable in a meeting room with a whiteboard.  Everything I heard internally was when he was doing this he usually wowed the people in the room.  He was a classic wingman.  Loved operating behind the scenes and influencing those around him.  Front and center was just not a big driver for Ray.

Finally there was the cult of Steve and Bill.  I was once told by someone at Microsoft that the company suffered from a cult of personality.  It was personified in Steve and Bill.  Ray was Bill’s choice to replace him.  That however does mean that Steve had to accept it, despite the title bestowed upon Ray of Chief Software Architect.  The relationship between Steve and Bill was very close, forged over 30 years,  I would also say it was not one of pure peers.  Steve would often say it is “Bill’s Company”, much to the annoyance of other execs.  My impression was despite the outside perception they worked in tandem, Steve deferred and I think to a degree was in awe of Bill.  When Bill left it would be a void no one could fill.  Ray was put in a position to fail.

With Ray’s departure it raises the question “Who will provide the technical leadership, the technical vision for Microsoft?”.  Yet another tech legend is leaving Microsoft.  It is paramount that someone is there to anticipate the tidal wave changes that impact the industry, because when they come, they come fast, furious, and with no remorse.  Are there candidates?  Hard to say at this point.  In his announcement SteveB said there would be no new Chief Software Architect.  No one to set the internal trends for future software development.  Oh well I guess it is not really that important to have a visionary at the worlds largest software company.  All I can add is pathetic.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann Oct 19, 2010